"Then and Now" - December 6, 2019

A place to discuss the weekly Wall Street Journal Crossword Puzzle Contest, starting every Thursday around 4:00 p.m. Eastern time. Please do not post any answers or hints before the contest deadline which is midnight Sunday Eastern time.
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Deb F
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#301

Post by Deb F »

MikeMillerwsj wrote: Mon Dec 09, 2019 4:18 pm Kudos to all of you who solved this very tricky contest! We had 796 entries, about 73% correct. (Your correspondent was among the solvers who had never heard of this show--but I made it to WON/WIN, suspected a duo might be TWINS, and that was enough to Google my way to the show.)

Incorrect answers included TOM & JERRY (23), REN & STIMPY, CHIP & DALE, ROCKY & BULLWINKLE (14 for all those), WILE. E. COYOTE & ROADRUNNER (12), BATMAN & ROBIN (11) and many others. Were those all stabs in the dark or did they go down a logical path?

Congrats to this week's winner: Anna Hargan of West Allis, Wisc.!
Not diminishing other Muggles, but I'm guessing these were stabs in the dark. I played with Rea & Stimpy, Chip & Dale and Batman & Robin but figured there was no connection. Loved Peabody and Sherman!!!
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MajordomoTom
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#302

Post by MajordomoTom »

I was wanting to throw in Mutt & Jeff, a tip of the hat to one of the very early newspaper comics, but not a cartoon. Wiki calls it "the first American newspaper cartoon published as a strip of panels".

I thought that was important enough to support being a meta WSJ puzzle.

I wondered and I wandered
I googled and I gandered
a cartoon duo sought
the twins, I discovered finally
but the mug still eluded me
"Lots of planets have a North", the Ninth Doctor.
ericharrison1969
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#303

Post by ericharrison1969 »

howardl wrote: Mon Dec 09, 2019 7:26 am Posting on Monday morning. This is the first time this has happened to me: I solved the grid, I saw the trick to the meta, I was looking for a WON/WIN cartoon duo. I couldn't think of one. I did an internet search and came to a page of "most famous cartoon duos" (of which there were 81) and there was no mention of WONder tWINs. I submitted, almost certain it wasn't right, "Wonder woman and WInnie the Pooh." Does anyone agree with my criticism that the answer is too obscure to be fair? (after posting, I'm coming back to edit and note that others do agree with this.)
I don’t think the answer itself was too obscure (I grew up late 70s on a steady diet of Wonder Twins), but I’m going to say that the mechanism itself just does NOT work. If it were staring me in the face, I would not connect WON/WIN with Wonder Twins. I had both WON / WIN and Wonder Twins on my scratch pad .....
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MajordomoTom
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#304

Post by MajordomoTom »

my kids (1985 and 1988) grew up on a steady diet of Rescue Rangers, Pinky & The Brain, Tail Spin and Duck Tails.

I think they were well fed - some of that stuff is pretty good.

If you need to conduct some research, Pinky singing about "the world of cheeses" should do it.

FJORD!
"Lots of planets have a North", the Ninth Doctor.
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Jazzvibist
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#305

Post by Jazzvibist »

I wasn't going to post this week but couldn't resist. I wonder how many other Muggles shared my experience of following up Jiggs and Maggie, Texas Slim and Dirty Dalton, Skeezix and Nina and Fenimore Frog and in the Sunday comics?

P.S. Because when solving WSJ metas I prefer to use Google only to confirm rather than find, I spend no more than 15 minutes on any one meta. In this case, never having heard of the Wonder Twins, any more time would be wasted. However, on the way to shut down I momentarily pondered whether to submit WONder Woman and Woozy WINks (who hung with Plastic Man) but decided against it.
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MarkL
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#306

Post by MarkL »

MikeMillerwsj wrote: Mon Dec 09, 2019 4:18 pm Kudos to all of you who solved this very tricky contest! We had 796 entries, about 73% correct. (Your correspondent was among the solvers who had never heard of this show--but I made it to WON/WIN, suspected a duo might be TWINS, and that was enough to Google my way to the show.)

Incorrect answers included TOM & JERRY (23), REN & STIMPY, CHIP & DALE, ROCKY & BULLWINKLE (14 for all those), WILE. E. COYOTE & ROADRUNNER (12), BATMAN & ROBIN (11) and many others. Were those all stabs in the dark or did they go down a logical path?

Congrats to this week's winner: Anna Hargan of West Allis, Wisc.!
LIppy the Lion and Hardy Har Har was entered purely in jest! Was that or Secret Squirrel and Morocco Mole.
'tis... A lovely day for a Guinness!
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Kas
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#307

Post by Kas »

In the famous (and apt) words of another cartoon character: "AAAAaaaaaaUUUGHHH!"
I wish...oh how I wish...that I could nod sagely at a "Kas 5" takeaway, but I'm going to have to put The WONder tWINs firmly in "Kas 4" territory. CRUMBS!! The thing is, I could even tell you their names...Zan and Jana, if memory serves...plus Gleek the monkey, for the extra point...but alas. Sigh. No Mug.
ericharrison1969
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#308

Post by ericharrison1969 »

The (alleged) obscurity of the Wonder Twins is a red herring at best. There is no mechanism to get from WON / WIN to Wonder Twins. I submit, however humbly, that if you got to to Wonder Twins from THAT, you guessed!

Ok, that’s the end of my rant. I’ve seen some genius meta puzzles over the years, and this wasn’t one of them.
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Hector
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#309

Post by Hector »

ericharrison1969 wrote: Mon Dec 09, 2019 8:39 pm The (alleged) obscurity of the Wonder Twins is a red herring at best. There is no mechanism to get from WON / WIN to Wonder Twins. I submit, however humbly, that if you got to to Wonder Twins from THAT, you guessed!

Ok, that’s the end of my rant. I’ve seen some genius meta puzzles over the years, and this wasn’t one of them.
Yeah, I disagree. The four themers are two words with the past-tense version of a signalled verb embedded in the first and the present tense in the second. That's missing with the fifth signalled verb, which clearly should be won/win. We're looking for a cartoon duo, so it is a solid inference that the duo can be denoted by two words, the first of which contains WON and the second of which contains WIN. A simple web search establishes that there was exactly one reasonably widely known such duo. That 600 people managed to solve this should tell you that they weren't throwing hail Marys. This was a solid meta---not one of my very favorites, but entirely fair, and 100%.
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MajordomoTom
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#310

Post by MajordomoTom »

but nothing to affirmatively nail that you "got it".

There's an "agog" in the clues, somewhat a signal towards "wonder", but nothing that I could see that supported "twins".

There were enough pieces there, but I agree with Eric more than with Hector on this one.
"Lots of planets have a North", the Ninth Doctor.
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FrankH
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#311

Post by FrankH »

BarbaraK wrote: Mon Dec 09, 2019 1:56 pm
When I'm googling for a meta, I often use a private/incognito window so that any initial bad paths will not contaminate my later results.
If you have been doing searches using a private/incognito window and now you want to do a new search without those previous results contaminating it, you need a clean start - delete all existing private/incognito windows and then bring up a new one. Just like Joe Ross, I use DuckDuckGo.
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FrankH
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#312

Post by FrankH »

Matt Gaffney commented about the Google issue over at crosswordfiend site.

https://crosswordfiend.com/2019/12/08/w ... ore-109681
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Hector
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#313

Post by Hector »

And I think he was exactly right. I want to be supportive both to folks who didn't get this one (often I'm in that group, and it takes soul searching to decide whether the puzzle is unfair or I just didn't figure it out this time) and to Matt. No offense to those who think otherwise, but I think Matt provided a fine puzzle.
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elan
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#314

Post by elan »

I didn't get the right answer (see my comment above) but I don't really get the animus about it.
WONDER TWINS is absolutely right in line with the other 4 "THEN AND NOW" answers in the grid and is an absolutely appropriate answer to the clue "comic duo."

When people started making noises about their age giving them insight into the dated answer, it was my own vanity to assume that meant it was before my gen-X generation. :) My bad.

When I was growing up, we didn't watch cartoons... we didn't have cable and we were busy with outdoor stuff. And I remember through college & grad school feeling left out when cultural references were made. Who would've thought that would come back and bite me one last time!

I liked this meta a lot. Well done!
WBYonder
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#315

Post by WBYonder »

I didn’t get the “aha” moment I usually get on reading the solution to a puzzle I didn’t get, more of a “huh”. On to next week.
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KayW
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#316

Post by KayW »

Well I'm still a bit grumpy because I TRIED to find lists of cartoon duos online. Often. For some reason the way I searched, the wikipedia list never came up in my results. Methinks I need new search engines. Or a remedial interwebs class.

More importantly, I don't think one should have to search long lists to find the solution. For one thing, I know some solvers will not use Google to solve on principle. There's no way such a solver could have gotten this unless they'd heard of Wonder Twins. This is a meta-contest, not a word-search puzzle or a scavenger hunt. Googling to confirm is one thing, searching for lists and then strings of letters within those lists is another. I think there should have been something indicating the complete solution, particularly given the obscurity of the answer. The recent solution of King Arthur and Sir Lancelot is one example where I could excuse extrapolation (even tho we didn't need to) as those characters are more widely known.

But then, I'm a grumpy old lady. :D Hey you Wonder Twins, get off my lawn!
Contest Crosswords Combating Cancer (CCCC) is a bundle of 16 metapuzzles created to help raise money for cancer-related charities. It is available at CrosswordsForCancer.com.
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MajordomoTom
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#317

Post by MajordomoTom »

KayW wrote: Tue Dec 10, 2019 12:35 pm <snip>
There's no way such a solver could have gotten this unless they'd heard of Wonder Twins.
<snip>
But then, I'm a grumpy old lady. :D Hey you Wonder Twins, get off my lawn!
Agree with the overall tone and content, but I'd never heard of them and found it (somewhat due to a lucky WIN to TWINS guess), and strongly agree with the GET OFF MY LAWN.

:mrgreen:
"Lots of planets have a North", the Ninth Doctor.
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MajordomoTom
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#318

Post by MajordomoTom »

and 1A in today's WSJ crossword ... DADBOD had to resurface.

why??!?!?!?!
"Lots of planets have a North", the Ninth Doctor.
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Kas
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#319

Post by Kas »

So...I just want to say that all Monday Morning quarterbacking about meta structures makes me chuckle. In general, I just find it astonishing that Gafney & Co. keep coming up with (relatively) unique twists, week after week. Sure, I prefer some to others (and I’m not even getting into PAGEANT or MARIE CHO)...but still: Kudos.
With that said...my objection to WONder tWINs was that...that’s not their names (versus Tom & Jerry, Ren & Stimpy, etc.)...but before truly throwing the gantlet on that point, I had to come to terms with the fact that that IS what they were generally referred to, as much or more than Batman & Robin (“Batwon & Ronwin?” ...err, sorry) are also known as The Dynamic Duo. End analysis: Fair play. The extra analysis required just is what it is.
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FrankieHeck
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#320

Post by FrankieHeck »

Anyone do the NYT Wednesday Dec 11 puzzle? Weird haha
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